Your 1st ten settings..

Your Nikon D7500, D7200, D7100 or D7000 is an amazing camera. It provides an exceptional auto-focus system, wonderful low light performance, HD movies, data backup facilities, and a whole lot more – all in a light weight, rugged construction body. In addition to providing all these features it can be highly customized to work how you need it to. Press the MENU button and take a look at the SETUP and CUSTOMIZED SETTINGS menus. First timers will be daunted! Even the more experienced will need to dig out the manual and learn what all the settings mean, even those upgrading from a more recent DSLR.

The DSLR’s metering and autofocus systems can be modified to your preferences, its dials and buttons can be assigned and customized so that you can gain easy access to the functions you use most, its frame rates can be configured, its white balance tuned, and lots more. But which settings needs changing? Well, in this article I’ll explain the first ten customisation settings you should perform (or consider performing) on your DSLR.

NB: On the D7500/D7200 the SHOOTING MENU is renamed as PHOTO SHOOTING MENU to differentiate from Movie Shooting settings. The text below refers to the PHOTO SHOOTING MENU as SHOOTING MENU for consistency across the DSLRs.

1 Ensure you’re not wasting shots – by having no card in a slot!

The first change I’d make is to ensure that you can’t take a shot without having a card in one of the slots. By default the setting here enables you to shoot even if you have no card inserted.

On the D7500, go to SETUP MENU, Slot empty release lock and set to Release locked

2. Insert Copyright and Contact information into every image.

If you’re posting images to the web then you really need to embed copyright details into the EXIF. Set this to be your name or web site, possibly including a contact email address or telephone number.

To configure this go to MENU – SETUP MENU (spanner/wrench symbol) – Image Comment – Input comment. Enter your copyright details and ensure you press the OK button. After you’ve entered the comment you need to attach it to all images, do this by going to Attach Comment, hit SET, then DONE, then OK.

3. Add Copyright information.

Carrying on from item 2, you need to set your copyright details, so go to MENU – SETUP MENU (spanner/wrench symbol)

– Copyright information – Artist – set this to your name

– Copyright – again set this to your name

– Attach copyright information – ensure this is ticked

– Done.

4. Set the appropriate video mode for your region on your D7000 (doesn’t apply to the D7500/D7200/D7100):

If you’re in the Americas or Japan set this to NTSC (525 lines/59.94Hz) , but if you’re in Europe, set this to PAL (625 lines/50Hz).

OK, so you may elect to shoot in RAW most of the time (you’ll get better image quality/recovery etc), but at times you want to shoot in JPEG (e.g. sports/action) so it’s best to set this once and forget it.

All zoom/superzoom lenses distort images to some degree, through either barelling (concaving) or pin-cushioning (convexing) your images. If you have Nikon lenses, the D7x00 can help reduce this in camera; go to MENU – SHOOTING MENU/PHOTO SHOOTING MENU (camera symbol) – Auto distortion control– set this to ON – OK. Some considerations here though:

It won’t completely eliminate distortion. You may still need to use software (PhotoShop/DxO etc) for this;

Prime lenses don’t suffer from distortion issues, but having the setting enabled will have no effect, since the D7x00 will recognize a Nikon prime;

It will slow down image processing/saving and therefore may not be appropriate for shooting bursts. Look at my BIN files (under Advanced Setup) and you’ll see it’s enabled in Landscape, but not in Sports & Action.